Canada's actions speaks louder than words

Page 5

Imagine you're six years old again...Everybody there? Okay, now you're taken away from your family and brought to a residential school where the adults who are responsible for your well being subject you to physical, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse. Your accommodation is crowded, cold, and sub-standard. You are underfed and ill nourished. You are discouraged from speaking your language, forbidden to practice the customs and traditions of your culture and made to feel ashamed of your ancestry. You are deprived of love and affection from your family. At least once a week you are taken into the office of an school employee who brutally rapes and beats you.

Okay, now snap back to reality...how do you feel? And how much money should be awarded to you by the church that ran the school that was home to your abuse and by a government that legislated such schools and then turned a blind eye?

In a report prepared for the Law Commission of Canada titled Institutional Child Abuse: Needs and Expectations for Redress Of Victims of Abuse at Native Residential Schools, Rhonda Claes and Deborah Clifton write that "estimates of appropriate compensation for victims of long-term physical and sexual abuse range from $100,000 to $600,000.

And yet the awards are a far cry from that recommendation.

Consider the damages awarded in the Alberni Indian Residential School (AIRS) lawsuit in June. British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Brenner awarded six former students of the AIRS damages ranging from $12,000 to $185,000. The total settlement was $495,000 with $90,000 of that expected to come from the incarcerated victimizer himself, Arthur Plint.

Justice Brenner said he was bound to follow the B.C. Limitation Act that prevents anyone from seeking damages for historical abuse other than sexual abuse.

Why then was the Canadian government not bound to follow the actions of the Newfoundland government that in 1996 awarded sexual abuse victims of the Mount Cashel orphanage $11 million? The average settlement in that case was $282,000. An incredible amount when you consider the average in the AIRS case was just $82,500.

In December of 1996, Chris Decker, minister of Justice and attorney general, said in a statement regarding the Mount Cashel victims: "The government has taken the extraordinary measure of offering to settle these claims in full at this time in order to end the distress caused to the victims by the prolonged proceedings to date."

At the risk of simplifying the two cases, doesn't it sound like the "distress" of white victims is worth millions more than that of Native victims?

The only "extraordinary measure" that has taken place concerning B.C. Indian residential schools was last December when now former deputy minister of Indian Affairs, Shirley Serafini, apologized to the Nuu-chah-nulth for everything from the loss of language to the children that died. "In closing," she said, "I would ask that if it is within your hearts, either now or in the future, that those of you who are able to do so can forgive us."

Imagine a government pleading for forgiveness while they spend three years litigating against the very people the apology was meant for.

Until the government can find it within its "heart" to pay the victims a settlement comparable to the Mount Cashel case, forgiveness will likely be very hard to come by.

It's important to keep in mind that after a three-year trial, a hefty portion the AIRS' plaintiffs settlements will be paid to their lawyers.

Speaking of lawyers, Tony Merchant of the Merchant Law in Saskatchewan said in an interview that he holds Justice Brenner in high regard. "Brenner is a very strong jurist. One has to assume that there was no evidence presented that he would accept that justified loss of income...hence the seemingly low awards."

Merchant might just be an expert on the subject of residential school cases, considering his firm stands to make about $100 million from them. Last year erchant was found guilty by the Saskatchewan Law Society of "conduct unbecoming a lawyer" and fined $15,000 for writing two letters to residential school victims soliciting "business."

With lawyers swarming like vultures preying on a freshly slaughtered carcass, victims must be wary of whom they trust.

Apologies from the government, from churches, from the Pope himself, are worthless when you consider that none of the guilty parties are willing to accept full responsibility or offer a settlement even close to being worthy of consideration.

As far as the churches that ran these abhorrent schools, who will they answer to? If any institution's actions should be above reproach, wouldn't it be one that preaches the word of God?

In the law commission's report, Claes and Clifton include the stirring thoughts of some of the victims, including the following:

"My name is Aurora. I am from a small band in the Northwest Territories. I am 46 years old. I am married to Charlie. We have six children. One of my children just died of cancer. She was 26 years old. I never went to her funeral. I couldn't because I can't go into a church. I haven't been able to go inside a church for many years. There have been so many deaths in my family. I have never gone to their funerals either. I just can't. There are Elders in the community who say that I will go to hell. Maybe I will, but I don't think so. When I was six years old I went to residential school."

Imagine the courage it takes to come forward after all these years to recount the daily abuse, rape and psychological torture that was your upbringing while other kids were playing street hockey and selling Kool-Aid, living the great Canadian childhood.

One of the AIRS victims, Marlon Watts, said, "Canada has failed us."

Indeed they have, repeatedly.